g. genetic diversity, β-diversity, species evenness) tend to be most affected, while some dimensions of climate change, such as fluctuations in winter weather conditions, changes in the length of the vegetational season and increased frequency of extreme weather events, that seldom receive attention in empirical studies, tend to be particularly detrimental to pollinators. Negative effects of global heating on pollinator biodiversity are most likely exacerbated by homogenous and fragmented landscapes, widespread across Europe and the US, which limit opportunities for range-shifts and reduce micro-climatic buffering. This suggests the need for conservation initiatives to focus on increasing landscape connectivity and heterogeneity at multiple spatial scales.Deviations in rainfall duration and timing are expected to have wide-ranging impacts for people in affected areas. One of these impacts is the potential for increased levels of conflict and accordingly, researchers are examining the relationship between climate variability and conflict. Thus far, there is a lack of consensus on the direction of this relationship. We contribute to the climate variability and conflict literature by incorporating Markov transitional probabilities into panel logit models to analyze how monthly deviations in rainfall affect the likelihood that a grid cell transitions to an above average level of conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa. To control for differences in seasons across the continent, we model this relationship for each of the regions of Sub-Saharan Africa separately - East, Central, West, and Southern. We find significant seasonal and regional effects between rainfall and the probability that a grid cell transitions from a state of peace to a state of conflict. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/Fedratinib-SAR302503-TG101348.html In particular, above average rainfall is associated with a higher likelihood of transitioning into conflict during the dry season. Further, each region has specific months-primarily those associated with prime crop harvest periods-where variations in rainfall significantly influence conflict. We also find regional variations in the linkage between rainfall and conflict type related to the types of conflict that predominate in particular regions of Sub- Saharan Africa. These findings are important for policymakers because they suggest additional law enforcement and/or peacekeeping resources may be needed in times of above average rainfall. Policies that provide financial support for farmers or other sectors, such as mining, that are impacted by rainfall patterns may also be a useful strategy for conflict mitigation.Bioaugmentation in the form of artificial mycorrhization of plant roots and bacterial inoculation has been successfully implemented in several fields including soil remediation or activated sludge treatment. Likewise, bioaugmentation seems a promising approach to improve the functioning of treatment wetlands, considering that natural mycorrhization has been detected in treatment wetlands and that bacteria are the main driver of contaminant degradation processes. However, to date, full scale implementation seems to be rare. This review synthesizes the effects of bioaugmentation on different types of treatment wetlands, to a large extent performed on a microcosm ( less then 0.5 m2) or mesocosm scale (0.51 to 5 m2). While inoculation with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi tended to show a positive effect on the growth of some wetland plants (e.g. Phragmites australis), the mechanisms underlying such positive effects are not well understood and the effects of upscaling to full scale treatment wetlands remain unknown. Bacterial inoculation tended to promote plant growth and pollutant degradation, but longer term data is required.Offshore oil and gas production is increasingly growing popular globally. Produced water (PW), which is the largest byproduct of oil and gas production, is a complex mixture of dissolved and undissolved organic and inorganic substances. PW contributes considerably to oil pollution in the offshore petroleum and gas industry owing to the organic substances, which mainly include hydrocarbons; this is a major concern to researchers because of the long-term adverse effects on the ecosystem. Since the development of offshore petroleum and gas industry, the PW treatment process has been classified into pretreatment, standard-reaching treatment, and advanced purification treatment based on the characteristics of PW and has been coupled with the environmental, economic, and regulatory considerations. The mechanism, design principle, application, and development of conventional technologies for PW treatment, such as gravity and enhanced gravity sedimentation, hydrocyclone, gas flotation, and medium filtration, are summarized in this study. Novel methods for further application, such as tubular separation, combined fibers coalescence, and membrane separation, are also discussed. Enhancement of treatment with multiple physical fields and environmentally friendly chemical agents, coupled with information control technology, would be the preferred PW treatment approach in the future. Moreover, the PW treatment system should be green, efficient, secure, and intelligent to satisfy the large-scale, unmanned, and abyssal exploration of offshore oil and gas production in the future.Technogenic magnetic particles (TMPs), produced during various industrial processes, are released into the atmosphere as dust and get deposited on the surrounding topsoil. The mineralogical and structural differences of TMPs produced in different technological processes should be reflected in their magnetic properties and therefore should be indicative for industrial pollution sources. The goal of this study was to characterize the TMPs by novel methodological approach, based on combination of magnetic methods and Mössbauer spectroscopy to indicate parameters that are discriminative enough to be used as environmental indicators for iron metallurgy, steel production, and iron mining. We collected the topsoil samples in the vicinity of 4 European iron- and steelworks, located in three different countries (Poland, Norway, and Czech Republic) and operating for minimum 40 years. We sampled also topsoil close to the opencast iron mine, iron ore dressing plant, and over strongly magnetic natural background. Analysis of the hyperfine parameters of the Mössbauer spectra revealed that TMPs are "magnetite-like" minerals with low stoichiometry.